


Best Actor in a Long Form Prank

by Mireille



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24004456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: An accident in the lab (thanks, DUM-E) when Tony is working with the Avengers' reluctant ally leads Clint (thanks, dumbass) to jump to the wrong conclusion about Tony's relationship with Loki.Tony's tendency to make terrible life choices leads him to agree when Loki suggests they go along with it to shock the others.Tony's not sure what leads him to actuallyfall forLoki, but it can't be a good thing....
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Comments: 26
Kudos: 299





	Best Actor in a Long Form Prank

**Author's Note:**

> As always, many thanks to soft_princess for everything she did to make this better than it would have been. <3

Every one of the last thirty seconds had been a new low point in Tony's day. 

Slipping on a patch of grease on the workshop floor (thanks, DUM-E) and nearly falling on his ass? Not great. 

Having a not especially sympathetic audience for that little pratfall? Definitely worse. 

Grabbing at Loki--the previously-mentioned unsympathetic audience--in an attempt to prevent the fall, and ending up smacking his head on the floor when he landed with the full weight of an Asgardian prince and semi-reformed villain on top of him? That was approaching comedic levels of crappiness.

Not to mention that after this, Loki would probably never come into the lab again, and Tony needed him as a guinea pig for his magic-blocking project. (Thanks again, DUM-E.)

Any of that could have been the worst part of his day. All of it combined really _should_ have been the worst part of the day. The worst part of almost any day, even for someone who regularly risked his life fighting evil, aliens, and evil aliens. 

And yet, it wasn't, because the first thing Tony heard once his brain stopped bouncing around in his skull was, "...Yeah, I'm going to come back later." 

About half a second after that, Tony realized that he was lying flat on his back on the floor with Loki on top of him in what probably looked like a compromising position. In reality, Loki was glaring down at Tony like he was trying to decide which small slimy creature to turn him into, but that wouldn't be obvious from the doorway. 

It also wasn't like Clint--because that, unfortunately, was whose voice that had been--was going to take the time to determine the accuracy of his farcically incorrect first impression before he told everyone else in the tower that he'd just walked in on Tony and their semi-villainous semi-ally, rolling around on the floor together. 

Thanks yet again, DUM-E. Tony glared at the robot as Loki got to his feet. 

He didn't say anything out loud, though, because the last thing he needed was to have to soothe hurt robot feelings on top of whatever other bullshit he was going to have to deal with for the rest of this stupid day.

****

Not even the sound of Clint's snickering echoing down the hall outside the lab as Tony stood up, decided that he probably hadn't actually given himself a concussion, and dusted himself off (not to mention avoided eye contact with Loki) was the worst part of his day.

Loki snarled at him, granted, calling him a clumsy oaf and informing him at great length of all the tortures that would await him if he ever did that again. But that barely registered with Tony these days. 

Ever since Loki had started reluctantly working with the Avengers--which mostly meant working with Tony to develop defenses against magic, their weakest point--he'd threatened Tony with torture, devastation, death, and agony at least once a week for such heinous crimes as "playing music Loki didn't like" or "eating the last doughnut." Tony was getting used to it, especially since Loki was shit on the follow-through. 

"Yeah, I get it, you're very offended," Tony said, waving a dismissive hand in Loki's direction. "I'll have you know there are thousands of people out there who would line up for a chance to be on top of me." 

"Unsurprising." 

Tony blinked in confusion, but then Loki went on, "I've never observed that good taste was a common characteristic on Earth," and that felt a lot more like something he would say. 

After that, things went back to their usual level of weird and annoying for a while: JARVIS took readings while Loki used magic, then Tony used that data to try to prevent Loki from using magic, then Tony swore a lot because Loki was still able to do magic. It was starting to be kind of their thing. 

Tony wasn't discouraged. He'd currently found sixty-five approaches to dampening Loki's magic that wouldn't work, every one of them contributing useful data. But he was annoyed, because while he was sure they were getting closer, that wasn't the same thing as succeeding. 

When Tony had finished with this round of failing and swearing, Loki went off to do whatever it was he did when he wasn't in the lab. He had quarters in the tower and access to almost every part of it that the team did, but he generally kept to himself when he wasn't trying to annoy someone. 

Tony sometimes caught himself thinking of it as "every part the rest of the team did," and then had to remind himself that Loki might be many things, including, "mostly reformed for the moment," but he wasn't actually part of the team, and the only person who would thank Tony for thinking of him that way was Thor. 

He ran today's backups and shut everything down, and then decided that he needed a sandwich. He headed up to the communal floor in the hope that Thor and Steve, between them, hadn't demolished the entire supply of sliced ham yet. Or at least that Steve had been the one to finish it, because he'd have thought to have JARVIS order more. 

He was partway across the lounge area when he heard voices coming from the kitchen.

"No, I'm not joking," Clint said. "They were rolling around on the floor." 

Tony stopped short. Nobody had seen him out here; that was obvious, since nobody was trying to get Clint to stop talking. He took a few steps to the side and approached the doorway more quietly, waiting just outside. 

"I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation," Bruce said. 

Good old Bruce. Tony had always liked him. He was definitely Tony's favorite team member right now, himself excepted. 

"You mean, like, 'they're boning'?"

Clint, on the other hand, was Tony's least favorite team member. 

"I can't believe that you, a grown man, just used the word 'boning' in a serious conversation." 

Yeah, he was going to have to do something nice for Bruce. Maybe a fruit basket. Or a selection of calming teas from around the world. Fifty pairs of super-stretchy pants. Something, anyway. 

"Sure you're not just jumping to conclusions?" That was Natasha, Tony's current second-favorite (non-Iron-Man) Avenger. 

"I know Tony has a reputation for doing anything with a pulse, but that doesn't mean that's what was happening right then." That was _also_ Natasha, Tony's current fourth-favorite (non-Iron Man) Avenger. 

"On the floor," Clint repeated. "Loki was on top of him. I was so disturbed. I'm just glad they were still wearing clothes, because I like my eyes and don't want to have to put them out." 

"But Loki," Bruce said. "No offense, Thor, but there's enough history there that I seriously doubt even Tony would--"

Nope, sorry, Bruce, no longer Tony's favorite. Still better than Clint, but right now, Tony liked everyone better than he liked Clint. 

"I understand you mean no insult," Thor agreed. "Though I must point out that my brother can be quite charming when he chooses. On Asgard, he never lacked for company, if he wished it." 

"Had he ever tried to kill those people, though?" Bruce asked. 

"Not generally," Thor admitted. 

Which, Tony noted, was not an unequivocal "no." Also, Loki hadn't chosen to be charming at any point when he and Tony were in the same room, at least not that Tony had noticed. 

Steve finally spoke up; Tony hadn't even been sure that he was in the room until then. "Aren't we making a big assumption? We don't even know whether Tony is interested in men."

We do if we're not idiots. Then again, being from the 1940s and being an idiot in the 2010s sometimes looked pretty similar. 

From the assorted snorts, chuckles, and something that sounded like choking, it appeared that nobody else was that particular kind of idiot. 

"Basic powers of observation, but also SHIELD files," Natasha said. That didn't surprise Tony; Fury probably also had a file on what brand of toothpaste Tony used. 

"I went to grad school with a guy who had hooked up with him at MIT, and I heard a few stories." Huh. There were only a few possibilities; Tony had gone to college young enough that he'd been in his final year before hooking up with any of his classmates had been a realistic option. Now he was curious, but he could Google the potential candidates later. 

"Why wouldn't he be?" That was Thor, which raised an interesting question about Asgard that Tony was never, ever going to ask him to expand on. 

"I'm just not a moron," Clint finished, although that was a blatant lie. 

Tony decided he'd heard enough. He could wait for a sandwich. Right now, he should probably find Loki, because no matter how badly Loki took this bit of gossip, it'd be nothing compared to how he'd react if he found out Tony already knew and hadn't said anything.

****

It turned out that "badly" was the wrong description.

Tony had asked Loki to meet him in the workshop, where he'd have access to weaponry if Loki, who wasn't the most level-headed of individuals, took it _really_ badly. 

Instead, Loki's actual reaction was to laugh so hard that he had to double over, his hands on his knees, until he could get his breath. When he finally stopped laughing, he said, "It's frankly humiliating to think that I was ever defeated by such a collection of imbeciles."

"Present company excepted, of course."

"Did I say that? I didn't mean to."

Tony fiddled with a disassembled gauntlet on his workbench to hide that he smiled at that. "Yeah, well, I just wanted to make sure you knew, in case someone mentioned it. I don't think they will, because they were too busy being scandalized, but I didn't want you to be surprised." He didn't mention that he was less concerned about Loki's feelings and more worried that a recovering megalomaniac's surprise might be of a destructive variety. 

Okay, maybe a little concerned for Loki's feelings, or at least because Tony's ego was a lot happier being laughed at in private than in front of the whole team.

But now that Loki had stopped laughing, he had a thoughtful expression that Tony wasn't sure boded well for anyone. "Scandalized, you say?"

He nodded. "Clint was horrified, though that was probably because Clint thought he walked in on us having sex."

"On the floor of your workshop? With your mechanical offspring watching?"

"I wish you'd stop calling them that." 

It wasn't like Loki didn't know the word "robot." He did, and he was perfectly capable of using it. But the first time he'd come to the lab and Tony had introduced him to DUM-E and U, Loki had been so amused by Tony's attitude toward them that he'd started a campaign of (admittedly, fairly gentle, especially for Loki) mockery. 

Tony was waiting for the best time to bring up that he'd read a couple of books about Norse mythology in college as part of some research for a D&D campaign he'd been running, and robot "kids"--not that Tony thought of them that way--were practically normal compared with the children that Loki was credited with having. 

"Regardless, I don't appreciate being accused of having standards that low. The idea that I'd have sex with you is embarrassing enough." 

"Likewise," Tony said emphatically. He definitely got that.

"But they were shocked. Disturbed. Concerned, possibly, about our sanity?"

"Nobody's concerned about your sanity," Tony said. "We're all sure that you don't have any."

Loki let that slide. "How do you feel about a little harmless deception?" 

He shrugged. "If it's for a good cause."

"I can't promise you that. It should be hilarious, though."

"That _is_ a good cause." 

"And that," Loki said, rubbing his hands together gleefully like a cartoon bad guy, "is why I dislike you less than the others."

****

Loki might have kept mostly to himself, but he made enough appearances in the common kitchen that nobody should have been surprised to see him rummaging through the refrigerator the next morning.

Nobody said anything to him, but that had nothing to do with it being Loki. The only one of the team who was a morning person was Steve, and Steve wasn't there. He'd have eaten breakfast hours ago, after coming back from his pre-dawn run, because Steve was terrible like that. 

Thor had grunted something that sounded like a greeting, but that was it. 

Tony was only on his second cup of coffee, and he'd put in a late night in his workshop. If it hadn't been time to put their plan into operation, he wouldn't have said anything either. 

He didn't pretend to be cheerful; that would have made everyone suspicious immediately. But he did pat the back of the chair next to him and say, "Saved you a seat." 

Loki's smile was kind of alarming, because Tony had had no idea that Loki could just smile like a normal person. Not a smirk, not an evil grin, just the way that people smiled at the people they liked. (Well, that explained why he'd never seen it. To his knowledge, Loki didn't like any of them.) "Thank you," he said, and set a cup of coffee and a bowl of fruit down at the indicated place. 

"Bruce made enough eggs for an army," Tony added. In general, anyone who decided to actually cook made a very large batch of whatever it was. 

"Anyone" never included Tony. If the team ever called him on it, he was planning to point out that buying all the groceries and having dinner delivered a few times a week ought to exempt him from cooking duties. Nobody ever did, probably because they all suspected that he was either a terrible cook, or would pretend to be one to teach them a lesson.

Loki took the lid off the oversized pan on the stove and began dishing out some of the scrambled eggs onto a plate, apparently completely unaware that four pairs of eyes were watching him intently. 

Tony focused on his toast; he was afraid that if he caught Loki's eye, he'd start laughing and blow the entire plan to hell before they even started. 

Once Loki had his food and had sat down next to Tony, though, Tony looked around the table at the others. "We weren't going to say anything about this for a while," he began, "but since Clint let the cat out of the bag already..."

"My eyes," Clint muttered. "Also, you're paying for my therapy."

"SHIELD is supposed to pay for that," Tony said, "but sure, if they won't cover it, send me the bill. Anyway. Since Clint already told you all what he saw--"

"How do you know that?" Bruce said. 

"Because you're loud, and I eavesdropped. Getting back to the point, Loki and I discussed it last night, and decided there's no reason to keep this a secret any longer."

He reached over and took Loki's hand. They'd talked it over yesterday, setting rules for how much and what kind of touching they were willing to go along with in the name of disturbing their nearest and dearest.

There were definitely limits, but they could probably make this really believable. 

It was going to be great. 

He sort of wished Steve was there, because he wanted to see the "Captain America isn't mad, just concerned" face, but the looks everyone else was giving him were exactly what he'd been hoping for.

Hey, they were the ones who thought he'd do anything with a pulse. He could confirm that Loki had a pulse; Tony could feel it under his fingertips. They had no excuse for being surprised. 

Clint looked horrified, but Clint had been giving him horrified looks every time they'd encountered one another since the lab incident yesterday. 

Bruce held his toast in the air, a centimeter or so from his face, for a very long time, but he didn't say anything. Of course, he had a lot of practice keeping his feelings under control.

Natasha's left eyebrow actually quirked upward about two millimeters, which for her, was practically having to pick her jaw up from the floor. 

And as for Thor, his eyes were wide, and he was beaming at Loki. "This is excellent news, brother!" Then he looked at Tony and said, "And Stark, I'm happy that you've looked beyond Loki's past misdeeds to perceive his true worth."

Okay, that was a little less hilarious. Thor sounded genuinely happy for them. Maybe he'd have to confirm with Loki that when they were ready to end this little joke, they'd have an amicable breakup, rather than just yanking the rug out from under Thor's feet. 

That might not go over too well, since crushing Thor's hopes and dreams was one of Loki's top three hobbies, along with, "being scornful about how pathetic humans were" and "dressing like one of Tony's old D&D characters, circa 1983." 

(Valaquin had, obviously, been an elf. And very mysterious. And extremely cool, if you were a thirteen-year-old nerd at boarding school whose latent bisexuality was trying to make its presence known via the creation of pretty-boy elf character after pretty-boy elf character. On the other hand, Valaquin had never tried to kill Tony, being fictional, so he was definitely an improvement over Loki.) 

He was going to have to try to convince Loki, though, because there was only so mean Tony was prepared to be. Even more so when it was to someone who could turn him into pâté with a single swing of his hammer. 

"Clint wasn't wrong?" Natasha said. 

"You don't have to sound so surprised!" Clint said. "I'm frequently not wrong."

"Not so I've noticed," Tony said. "But in this case, yeah, Clint was right." He shrugged. "We'd been careful to keep it out of the lab, but yesterday we just got carried away."

"How long has this been going on?" Bruce asked. 

Tony was prepared for this; they'd agreed on a story last night. "About a month after Loki came over to our side."

Natasha set down her cup of tea and leaned forward, frowning skeptically at him. "You expect us to believe that you've been having a secret affair with Loki for the past three and a half months, and yesterday was the first time any of us even suspected anything?"

Tony almost felt like apologizing to her for that. Natasha prided herself on her powers of observation, and justifiably so. 

Loki set his fork down on his plate. "You can believe whatever you like. It doesn't matter to me. Dr. Banner asked us a question, and Tony answered it. What you do with that answer is up to you."

"It's a fair question," Tony interjected. "I'm not generally big on subtlety and discretion." He squeezed Loki's hand, unsure if anyone would be able to see it, but figuring that the more they behaved toward one another like a genuine couple, in public at least, the more convincing they would be. 

"But Loki is a lot more private than I am," he went on, and was pleased to see Thor nodding in agreement. "And I have to admit, there was also the part where at first, I wasn't completely sure how far we could trust Loki. Even when I decided that I trust him, I didn't know how far you'd all be willing to."

Clint held up his thumb and forefinger, pressed tightly together. "'Bout that far, I'm thinking." 

"But it's been months, and he hasn't done anything criminal since he got here. He's even been pretty helpful in the lab," Tony said. He wasn't going to argue with Clint about that, since Clint had made some pretty big concessions just agreeing to have Loki in the tower, but he wasn't going to acknowledge it, either. "So we decided there was no reason to deny what you saw yesterday."

"Well. Um. Congratulations, I guess?" Bruce said. 

"Thank you." Loki sounded completely sincere. Tony reminded himself that he shouldn't feel so relieved about that; Loki ought to be able to lie convincingly. It'd be pathetic if the so-called god of lies couldn't manage that. 

"So does that mean Loki's moving into the penthouse?" Natasha asked. "Since you've gone public and all."

Oh. Shit. They hadn't thought about that. "It's a little early for that," Tony began, at the same time that Loki also spoke. 

"It certainly does," he said. "Transferring my belongings to Tony's apartment--" and Tony hoped they all noticed that it had been Tony this morning, not Stark, another thing they'd agreed on last night-- "is on my agenda for today." 

Tony kicked Loki's ankle under the table. Loki just turned to him with--

Okay, that was a pretty convincing version of a fond smile. Again, only weird because it was Loki. 

Kind of nice, too. It had been a while since he and Pepper had called things off, and even she hadn't been smiling at him like that, there at the last. 

"I know we talked about waiting a while longer," Loki said, "but you don't mind, do you?" He kicked Tony back, a lot harder. Tony was going to pretend it was accidental. 

"Nah," Tony said. "It'll be nice seeing your face the first thing every morning." 

"I think I'm going to be sick," Clint muttered. 

"It's kind of... sweet?" Bruce sounded dubious, though. 

"Mother will be pleased to hear about this," Thor said. 

Tony wasn't so sure about that. Mothers frequently weren't all that pleased about him. Pepper's mother had _hated_ him. 

"Do not tell Mother," Loki snapped. 

"Why not? Don't you want me to meet your mom, Loki?" Tony shook his head. "You're not ashamed of me, are you?"

Before answering, Loki kissed Tony quickly on the corner of his mouth. Perfectly calculated, in Tony's opinion: enough PDA to disturb any observers, but not enough to be gross. 

Not that Tony necessarily considered PDA gross, but he was guessing that the others would, especially PDA involving him and Loki. Also, getting that up close and personal with Loki was not part of the plan. 

Then Loki smiled at him again and said, "Only a little," and went back to his breakfast.

****

That morning, Tony had to skip his usual time in the lab; he had a dog-and-pony show he'd promised Pepper he'd show up for. A group of tech journalists were coming to see a demonstration of Stark Industries' "next big thing" in the field of digital communication.

He'd never tell Pepper, but these things were actually kind of fun. He hated meetings, but he always enjoyed showing off his projects to a suitably-impressed audience. 

Afterward, though, he dodged Pepper's suggestion that they discuss the upcoming product launch over lunch--"Thursday, I swear," he promised, "but there's stuff I really have to get back to right now"--and had JARVIS ask Loki to meet him in the lab in forty-five minutes. 

He really needed to get Loki to carry a damn cell phone. Tony suspected that unlike Thor, Loki would see the point in owning one and would be willing to use it, as long as he could be convinced that it was his idea in the first place. 

He ordered lunch for them, too--well, he had JARVIS repeat their last order at the deli Tony usually used in "too hungry to make a decision" situations, but that counted.

Tony had been glad to discover that Loki was happy to eat in the lab rather than take an actual lunch break. Even Bruce tried to get Tony to leave the lab for meals. 

In Loki's case, it was probably that spending time with one human was preferable to potentially spending time with as many as five of them plus possibly Thor, but it still worked out well for Tony. 

It worked pretty well for their plan, too, because now all those working lunches looked like snatched scraps of private time together. 

Forty-five minutes gave Tony enough time to go back up to his apartment to change. When he got there, he found that Loki actually had moved his stuff in. There was a small bookcase in the living room that he'd never seen before, with a lot of old-fashioned looking (but not, Tony noted, old-looking) leather-bound books in it, and when Tony went into the spare bedroom to look, there were a few clothes hanging in the closet. Not as many clothes as Tony would have expected, but he supposed the rest of Loki's wardrobe was provided by magic somehow. 

Tony had just gotten out of his suit and into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt when JARVIS announced, "Captain Rogers is at the door, sir. Shall I let him in?"

He'd been expecting to have this conversation, or possibly confrontation, with Loki present, but he could handle Steve on his own, no problem. It might even go better that way. "Sure, go ahead." 

Tony put his shoes on, then went out to the living room. Steve was standing just inside the doorway, looking distinctly uncomfortable. 

"Oh, for God's sake, Cap, sit down. I know why you're here." Even if he'd been dumb enough to not be expecting this, that really was the "Captain America is deeply concerned" expression. 

"I figured you would." Steve took a chair, sitting awkwardly at the edge of the seat. "I'll make this quick, Tony: Are you sure you know what you're doing?" 

"Dating Loki, you mean? I'm pretty sure, yeah." He waved at the bookcase. "He just moved in. Aren't you going to congratulate us?"

"You know what I mean. This is Loki. Are you absolutely sure this is a good idea?"

Tony blinked at him for a moment, trying his best to present a picture of wounded feelings. "No, of course I'm not," he said. Then, before Steve could reply, he went on, "Is anybody, ever? Life is risk. But I don't feel like, as risks go, this is a big one. Maybe it won't work. If that happens, we'll deal with it." 

Steve frowned at him. "You're being willfully obtuse."

"Do you blame me?" Tony went over to the couch and sprawled at one end. 

Steve didn't pay attention. "Let me rephrase my question, then. Are you absolutely sure this is your idea? Natasha made it sound like you didn't want Loki to move in with you, but here he is."

He hadn't considered the possibility that Steve was going to be worried about mind control. Loki had been living with them for months now, and he'd been mostly not-evil for a while before that. Not even Clint had suggested that Loki was controlling his mind, and Tony would have expected it from Clint. 

"We hadn't talked about it since before Clint caught us," Tony said. "Once you guys knew about us, Loki was right. There wasn't any reason for us to wait."

"'Loki was right,'" Steve repeated. "You give me arguments like that and expect me not to be worried?"

"Do I seem mind-controlled to you? I mean, honestly, is anything I'm doing that far out of character?"

Steve was quiet for a minute, actually seeming to be thinking that through. "I suppose not," he said reluctantly. "Except for the part where you two kept this secret for months. I never pictured you as the discreet type."

"I can be discreet," Tony protested. "Only about a third of the stupid things I've done in my life ever made it near the gossip columns." 

Steve chuckled briefly at that, then turned serious again. "I'll grant that you're probably not being mind-controlled, but that doesn't make this a good idea, does it? I mean, Loki is still, well, himself."

"He's been helping us for months," Tony insisted. "Almost a year now, off and on, and he's been living in the tower for over four months. When are you going to believe that he's changed?" Then he heard himself and shook his head. "Okay, I don't know that he's changed that much, but he's at least decided that he's going to be obnoxious for our side." 

"For the moment."

"Yeah, for the moment," Tony said. "Again, could be true of any of us. I mean, I don't think you'd ever go evil, but if you decided you didn't like what we were doing, I could see you trying to stop us. Or leaving the team and going your own way. Right?"

"Not going to happen," Steve said, "but I guess I see your point. You really trust him?"

"I trust him not to stab me in my sleep. I trust him not to let Doctor Doom into the tower. I don't trust him not to be an asshole, but who knew that was one of my turn-ons?"

Steve laughed again, this time more naturally. "Well, you're pretty much in love with yourself, so...?"

Tony had to laugh too, clasping his hands to his chest in mock pain. "You wound me, Captain. I may never recover from the pain."

"Are you happy?"

"Of course I'm not happy. You just mortally wounded me. Weren't you listening?"

"Be serious for a minute. Are you happy with Loki?"

"Definitely." That should be believable. He'd been in a pretty good place for a while now: over the breakup with Pepper, getting used to being part of a team (still not great at that, but making an effort), making some promising headway in the anti-magic defenses (at least in the sense that he now had a long list of things that wouldn't work). Steve would have noticed some of that, at least, and now he could attribute them to Tony's newfound happiness with Loki. 

He couldn't resist yanking Steve's chain a little, though. "Just keep an eye on me, okay? Just in case I get swayed to the Dark Side by the power of that sweet Asgardian ass."

Steve choked, apparently on thin air. "Did you have to say that?"

"No, but you turned such a pretty color that I can't regret it." He grinned at Steve. "Now, I hate to push you out the door, but I have a lunch date." 

"Sorry." Steve got up from the chair and started for the door. 

"No problem. I'm not even going to be late." He followed Steve out the door and into the elevator. "J, take Cap wherever he wants to go, and then I'm going to the lab."

"I thought you had a lunch date?"

"I do. In the lab, with Loki."

"Maybe I should be more worried about him," Steve said. "You seem to be teaching him all your bad habits."

"Not all of them, I promise," Tony said. "Just the obscene ones."

He leaned back against the wall of the elevator, arms folded across his chest, watching Steve struggle against the urge to smack him.

****

"Someone's coming," Loki said, putting his sandwich down and rolling his chair a little closer to Tony's.

"I don't hear anything." 

"And yet, someone is still coming," he said. "Let's give them a bit of a show, shall we?" He reached out and turned Tony's chair so that they were facing one another, then leaned in to kiss Tony, his hands resting on Tony's upper arms. 

Tony moaned, purely for theatrical purposes, but it inspired Loki to greater efforts in fake kissing. When he pulled back, Tony took the initiative and kissed him again. 

"Jeez, Tony, can you keep that out of the lab?" Bruce said as he came into view, his eyes fixed on the contents of the mug he was holding. "You did so great for what, three months? Can't you keep doing that?"

"Ah, sorry," Tony said with studied insincerity. He rolled his chair back and reached for his coffee. "I guess we just got carried away."

Bruce stopped and leaned against a work table. "Is that going to be your excuse for everything?" 

"It's worked for the past forty-odd years. Why change a winning strategy?"

Shaking his head, Bruce went off to his own work area, and Tony grinned at Loki. "It looks like we're traumatizing everyone we know."

"Oh, no," Loki deadpanned. "That would be such a shame." 

"And that's why I love you," Tony said. 

"I thought it was for my charming personality and good looks." 

"All of the above, plus you can do magic," Tony said. "Thus giving me a very awkward conversation with Steve, who's afraid you cast some kind of love spell on me."

"It's a valid concern," Loki said. "Other than the fact that I would never waste the effort on you when it's so easy to win you over the natural way."

"That's me," Tony said cheerfully, raising his voice a little. "Easy."

From the spluttering sounds on the other side of the lab, his voice had carried every bit as well as he'd hoped it would.

"Sorry," he called, grinning at Loki.

"You're not," Bruce called back. "You're never sorry when you act like a maniac."

"I don't think he's acting," Loki said. 

To Tony's surprise, that produced a short bark of laughter from Bruce. "He's got you there."

"He's got me _everywhere_." 

Bruce ran his hands through his hair. "Loki, can you, I don't know, take him somewhere else? Anywhere else? He's starting to get on my nerves." 

If that request had come from anyone but Bruce, Tony was sure Loki would have responded by egging Tony on to new heights of annoyingness, but Loki never hesitated to do whatever he could to avoid encountering the Hulk--even if Tony was sure that Bruce had enough control that mild annoyance wasn't going to result in a Code Green. 

He tossed the wrapping from his sandwich into the trash can and stood up. "Come, Tony," he said, "I think we've spent enough time working today."

"We barely got started," Tony said in half-hearted protest, but he let Loki pull him up out of his chair. 

Loki didn't let go of Tony's hand as they left the lab; Tony assumed it was a 75/25 split between keeping up the no-longer-secret boyfriends act, and wanting to make sure Tony actually did what he was told. 

Out in the corridor, Tony pulled his hand free. "Okay, so, since I've just been kicked out of the lab, I'm going upstairs to work on--"

"No, you're not," Loki interrupted him. "We're going to be spending time on the common floor, taking advantage of the fact that your friends know about our relationship."

"We could retreat to 'our' apartment," Tony countered, "making it clear that we're going up there to have sex. All the traumatizing of our loved ones, none of the sitting around being bored." 

"They'll be assuming that every time we're in your apartment anyway. This is a chance to add some verisimilitude to our claims." 

Probably true, if a bit "swallowed a dictionary" for Tony's taste, and not even unreasonable. "Fine, let's go scar some psyches."

****

In the middle of the day, most people had better things to do than to just hang out in the lounge area, unless they'd just been kicked out of their workspace.

Bruce, clearly, was in the lab. According to JARVIS, Steve had a meeting with someone from SHIELD, Natasha was in one of the training suites, and Thor had left on a visit to Dr. Foster. 

That left Clint, and they were in luck; he was sitting at one of the tables at one side of the lounge area, working on some of his arrows. He lost a few in every fight, but he retrieved what he could, especially if they were some of the special ones he'd designed himself, and those required repairs. 

He was also watching daytime television. 

Tony groaned when he realized what was on TV. He really should have put his foot down when Clint had refused his offer of a workshop of his own. He would have, if he'd known this was going to happen. "We get any channel you care to name, all the latest streaming services, plus an extensive video library available at a single word to JARVIS, and you're watching _Judge Judy_?"

Clint looked up. With an almost believably solemn expression, he said, "It keeps me in touch with the average person. You know, reminds me why we fight." When Tony made a face at him, he broke into a grin and went on, "Because apparently a lot of people are too dumb to find their asses with both hands and a map, and therefore we need to protect them."

Then he shrugged. "Also, I work better with noise, and this isn't interesting enough to distract me from what I was doing."

Tony thought of pointing out that the solution to that particular problem was music, of which they also had an extensive library, more so now that the others had moved in and requested music that reflected their own, usually terrible, taste. 

But he didn't want to annoy Clint enough that he left the room; they needed an audience. 

"Do you care if we put on a movie, or are you really watching this crap?"

"I'm really watching this crap. Go watch a movie in your own apartment."

"Nah, I don't think so. Guess we'll just have to make our own fun." Tony sat down on the couch, then patted the cushion next to him in invitation. When Loki sat next to him, Tony twisted around so that he could lie with his feet propped on the arm of the couch and his head in Loki's lap. 

"This comfortable for you?" he asked Loki, hoping Loki would realize that what he was really asking was, _Is this okay, or are you going to turn me into a newt for it?_

"It's fine," Loki assured him. 

It was more than fine. It was a great strategy. It looked incredibly intimate, but because all Tony was doing was lying there, it didn't require either of them to successfully fake being attracted to one another. They could just lounge on the couch, both silently resenting Clint for insisting on daytime courtroom shows as background noise. 

"I don't understand," Loki said after ten minutes or so, ten minutes where Tony had found himself relaxing a lot more than he'd ever expected to do in Loki's company. He wasn't even minding that Loki's contribution to their attempt to disturb the hell out of Clint was to rest his hand in Tony's hair, blunt nails scratching lightly at his scalp. 

It made Tony feel like a house cat, but it was soothing, all the same. Next time he got his hair cut, he needed to make the time to book a scalp massage, too. 

"Don't understand what?" 

"This is what passes for entertainment here?" 

"To some people, yeah. It gives us somebody we can feel superior to," Tony theorized. "You know, 'My life may be a mess, but at least I'm not suing my grandmother over some Flintstones jelly glasses.' You ought to understand that sentiment." 

"I understand having no sympathy for fools like these," he said, nodding toward the screen, where Judge Judy was explaining to the plaintiff that she was one of the biggest idiots to ever walk the earth. "But Barton is watching this voluntarily?"

"Barton can hear you," Clint said. "And I told you, it's noise to keep me company while I work. If you don't like it, you can go cuddle on your own couch. In fact, feel free to do that anyway."

"This is nothing," Tony said. "We can be a lot more nauseating if we try."

"No shit. I'm the one who saw you guys in the lab. There isn't enough brain bleach in the world." His eyes narrowed as he addressed Loki. "And if I see anything that makes me think you're using magic on Tony, you're going to be filled with so many arrows that you'll look like a pincushion. And then I'm going to turn you over to SHIELD and let them use you as a lab rat." 

"I'm touched," Tony said. "But I swear, any magic is being used between two consenting adults."

"I'm starting to think I should just shoot both of you."

****

"It's been three days," Natasha said as she arranged some fruit and a sandwich on her plate. "I still don't believe a word of this."

Tony leaned back against the kitchen counter, munching on the cold pizza he'd discovered in the fridge. There usually wasn't any leftover pizza, but with Thor out of town, some of it had gone uneaten last night. "Why would I lie? Think about it. Would anybody let people think they were dating Loki if they weren't actually dating him? Hell, we kept it a secret for months because of how you guys would react."

"I don't know why you're lying about it," she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down to eat her lunch, "but I'm sure you're lying. Did you think this through? How do you see this little game ending?"

"The celebrity wedding of the decade? You can be the maid of honor. Mine, of course; I'm sure Thor's going to insist on being Loki's best man." 

She snorted in disgust. "It's not going to go well," she said, and then pulled out her phone and started reading something. Tony finished his pizza, washed his hands, and headed for the lab. 

He'd been thinking about how badly this was going to end a lot over the past few days, actually. And if the others' reactions--Clint's and Steve's, especially--hadn't been funny, Tony would have wanted to call the whole thing off, just because the longer they let this go on, the bigger mess there would be at the end. 

It would be a big enough mess now. Everyone on the team knew about their "relationship," though at least they'd all agreed with Tony's request that no one outside the tower needed to find out. 

"Loki still has some work to do redeeming his image," Tony had said, "and if you guys keep suspecting that he's mind-whammying me somehow, how are people who don't know us going to react?" 

That would keep this from becoming a _public_ disaster, anyway. 

But he still had Loki living in his apartment. At least there was a second bedroom, and none of the others needed to know that they weren't sharing a bed. 

And he still went through a lot of his day pretending to be in love with Loki. 

It wasn't all bad. It meant Loki showed up to team dinners and other social activities, which Tony thought was probably good for him (at least, people always told him that when they reminded him to show up), and which Thor would appreciate if he kept this up. 

(Loki might talk about centuries of resenting and hating Thor, and Thor might over-idealize their childhood, but Tony figured that somewhere in the middle was a place where the brothers had been friends, once. And maybe they could be again, unless Thor found out that Loki had been tricking them with this. Another reason why Thor shouldn't ever find out.) 

Beyond that and the new living situation, not a lot had changed for Tony and Loki. They spent a lot of time together in the lab, and Tony thought he might have managed to isolate some aspects of the energy signature of Loki's magic, something he could start building a defense against. Even Loki had started to seem more interested in the project now, though that could just be him putting up a front in case someone came into the lab. 

They'd been doing a good job of putting up a front in general. This morning he'd had JARVIS alert them when Steve was getting close to the kitchen, so that he could walk in on a scene of Tony sitting on the counter, his legs locked around Loki's waist as they kissed. 

Loki, as it turned out, was, or at least could pretend to be, an utterly filthy kisser: slow and deep and dirty enough that for a moment, anyway, Tony could stop thinking about it as a performance and just enjoy it. 

The ripe-tomato shade that Steve turned when he saw them was amazing, but he turned an even deeper red when he realized that Tony had seen him standing in the doorway for a full thirty stunned seconds before clearing his throat to announce his presence. 

Tony didn't say anything about that; it was enough that Steve knew. He'd just grinned as he'd slid back down to the floor. "Morning, Cap. Sorry about that, thought you'd still be out on your run." 

"It started to rain cats and dogs," Steve said, not meeting Tony's eyes. "I'm heading for the gym."

Loki took an orange from the fruit bowl and carried it to the table along with his coffee. He didn't say anything to Steve, but they acknowledged one another with small nods, which was another thing that hadn't really happened before this week.

Steve didn't say anything about the way Loki kept looking over at Tony with a slight smile, but Tony thought he'd noticed. 

"There's coffee," Tony said, "and I felt like bagels. They should be delivered in fifteen minutes or so. I got enough for everyone. Onion, right?" 

Steve got down a travel mug and filled it with coffee. "Thanks. I'll be back in a while. I just stopped by to grab some coffee to take to the gym with me." 

"What, no lecture about how other people live in this tower, and we should be more considerate?"

"Why should I do that?" Steve wasn't smiling, but the way the corners of his mouth twitched made it obvious that he was having to consciously try not to. "Looks like you already know everything I'd be telling you." 

Once Steve had gone, Loki smirked at Tony. "So are you going to take the Captain's very sensible advice and behave yourself?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

Besides, if they behaved themselves, that meant they wouldn't make out like that again, and Tony would miss that. 

If there was one thing this act of theirs was making absolutely clear to Tony, it was that it was time for him to get back out there and start resurrecting his social life. Between the team and his research and getting over the end of a long-term relationship, he hadn't been keeping up the "playboy" part of his reputation lately. 

He didn't mind passing for a responsible adult from time to time, but when a fake make-out session with Loki, of all people, was that enjoyable, he really needed to get laid. 

Not that he could do anything about reviving his personal life yet, not unless they decided they wanted to blame Tony's wandering eye for their inevitable breakup. 

That could work, but he really didn't want his friends to think that about him. 

Maybe he should talk to Loki about wrapping this up soon, before he did something dumb.

****

"Absolutely not," Loki said. "We can't end this so soon. It'll look suspicious. Only a week after we're found out, and it's already over?"

"Why can't we?" Tony was pacing back and forth in front of the couch in his living room, frowning down at Loki, who was stretched out with a book in his hand. "It's not like we can stretch the joke out much further, anyway. Everyone believes us but Natasha, and she's the most suspicious person I've ever met. There's nowhere else we can go with this. Plus, if we wait too long, Thor's going to let something slip the next time he goes back to Asgard."

"They may believe us," Loki said, "but they still think there's something suspicious going on. They're watching you for signs of magical coercion, aren't they?"

"Maybe a little," Tony admitted, "and that's both annoying and a little embarrassing. I mean, hello, I managed to not get mind-controlled last time, why are we assuming you'd be any more successful now?"

"Because this time I'd know I have to account for the effects of the arc reactor?" Loki said, huffily. 

"Seriously, why aren't you offended? They're implying that the only way you could get me to sleep with you is with magic. And I'm going to be really honest here: I'm pretty easy to get into bed, so that's doubly insulting."

"I might be insulted, if their opinions meant anything to me." 

"I'm insulted on your behalf. It's not like you're all that bad-looking. To be honest, you're reasonably attractive, now that you've lost a lot of that 'unwashed megalomaniac' look you had going on for a while there." 

"Such effusive praise," Loki said. "I think I'm blushing."

"Nope, you're still the same color as something that spent its entire life in a cave," Tony reassured him. "But you know what I think the problem is? This is looking too one-sided. I'm the one talking you up to my friends, and when we're in public, unless we're arranging to be caught making out, you don't say much. Or do much. So of course they're going to think that I'm overdoing things, and I can see why they might go with 'mind control.'" 

He walked over to the bar. "Want a drink? I think I need one." 

"Why not?"

He poured whiskey in two glasses. "Obviously, the perfect solution would be to call this off. We can break up, things can get back to normal, and everyone stops worrying about my sanity. Sit up," he added as he reached the couch. 

Loki did, and Tony handed one glass to him and then sat down beside him. 

Loki took a sip of his drink. "I said it's much too early for that."

"Then we have to go with plan B. You need to start acting a lot more into me. Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered, you know the drill. You're doing a great impression of someone who wants to get into my pants, but now you've got to sell the 'in love with me' part." 

He leaned back against the couch, savoring the smoky taste of the liquor in his glass. "Which shouldn't be too hard. Look at me. Looks, intelligence, charm, money--who wouldn't fall in love?"

"Not to mention the humility." Then Loki smiled. "I believe I'm a sufficiently talented liar to convince these idiots that I've fallen for you."

"There you go," Tony said. "And if that gets Steve and the others off my back, I'll be a lot more willing to let you draw this out longer." He was still going to feel bad about Thor, but Thor, of all people, should know better than to trust Loki. 

"Good, because I'm not planning to give you much of a choice about that."

****

That night's team dinner was Chinese food; it had been Clint's turn to pick, and he'd been telling them about a hole-in-the-wall place that he liked. They didn't deliver, but Clint had called in an order and Tony had dispatched Happy to go bring it back, fending off any grumbling about that not being Happy's job any more by also ordering dinner for the entire security team.

"So are you two joined at the hip?" Clint grumbled when Loki followed Tony into the lounge. "Team dinner, Tony."

"He's part of the team." 

"From the look he's giving you, I think he'd be the first to agree with me that he's not."

"Barton is correct," Loki said. "I'm not, nor do I want to be, part of your little team." 

"Our 'little team' didn't have much trouble dealing with you," Steve said. 

That was an exaggeration, in Tony's opinion; they'd had a hell of a lot of trouble dealing with Loki, if only because of the "friends" he'd brought with him. It hadn't been easy. They'd just _won_. 

Which was what counted, of course, but that didn't mean Steve had to brag. 

Loki actually gave Steve a smile that didn't look like he was baring his teeth. "For once, I wasn't insulting your abilities," he said, "but that doesn't mean that I want any part of your team."

"You're not an Avenger," Tony agreed. "But you're definitely part of the team. Even if you and I weren't together, anybody who puts in that many hours in the lab with me definitely qualifies."

As that smile was brought to focus on Tony, it softened and grew warmer. "Ah, but I have an ulterior motive there."

"Obviously," Tony said, after an uncomfortably long pause in which he reminded himself that Loki was just doing what Tony had asked him to: making his interest in Tony seem more genuine. "But you still put in the hours, so you're still stuck being one of us, at least as far as 'team dinner' is concerned."

"Fine," said Clint. "But I swear to God, if the two of you start making out, I am going to lobotomize you both with my chopsticks."

"We'll be good," Tony promised. 

Only Steve was able to suppress his snort of disbelief. 

They did behave themselves, at least in the sense of "not making out at dinner." They weren't a couple of horny teenagers; they could keep their hands off one another. It wasn't a problem. It was easy to resist making out with someone if you weren't actually interested in them. 

That didn't mean that they didn't manage to be pretty damn disgusting. In Tony's opinion, they were a lot more sickening than simply groping one another would have been. He'd dragged out everything he'd ever been annoyed with when other people did it, or when someone he'd been out with had tried it with him. 

When Loki asked him a question about what he was eating, Tony didn't answer, or even just offer some to Loki; he made a point of feeding him a bite. 

He brought out all the sappy generic pet names he could think of, though he had to stop when he called Loki "sugarplum" and got kicked in the shin. The bruise notwithstanding, it was kind of a relief, because he'd reached his own limit a while back but had been finding it hard to back down. 

Loki loyally took Tony's side in the argument about how many _Star Wars_ movies there were, even though Tony knew that Loki didn't have the slightest clue what that even was. 

(Six. There were definitely six. Just because nobody else could see through the admittedly terrible parts of the prequel trilogy to find the few good bits, that didn't mean that they didn't count.)

When Bruce called him on not knowing what _Star Wars_ was, Loki's only response was, "I trust Tony's judgment."

"You'd be the only one," Clint said, because Clint was still solidly in the running for Tony's all-time least favorite Avenger. "Especially now." 

When the meal was over and they decided it was time for another chapter of Operation "Bring Steve into the Twenty-First Century" (it sounded a lot better than just calling it "movie night"), the two of them claimed a couch for themselves; this time it was Loki's turn to lie with his head in Tony's lap, and Tony had to pretend that it was comfortable and not at all weird. 

Or rather, Tony didn't have to pretend that it was comfortable and not at all weird, because it was, and it wasn't, and what the actual fuck was he doing?

He was playing a role, that was what he was doing. 

They were fucking with people, because Steve and Clint's reactions were frankly hilarious to Tony, and because fucking with Thor was Loki's favorite thing to do, even if Tony, personally, didn't find "being genuinely happy for them" to be nearly as funny as Steve's obvious disappointment in Tony's judgment, let alone Clint's exaggerated horror. 

Clint's aversion to Loki was completely understandable, of course, but Tony would have bet a literal million dollars on there also being a good sized chunk of "not as straight as you think you are, Hawkeye," in the mix.

And to keep up the joke, they had to do things like cuddle on the couch. It was a plus that Tony wasn't disgusted by what he was doing, but beyond that, the entire thing was an act. 

He was _acting_ comfortable with Loki sprawling on him like this. He was _acting_ like his natural reaction to Loki's head on his lap was to rest his hand in Loki's hair, his thumb seeking out Loki's temple and rubbing gently, the way Pepper used to like him to do when she'd had a long day. 

He was a damn good actor, that was what this was. An excellent actor. A nominee for Best Actor in a Long-Form Prank. 

He just had to remember that he was acting, because if Loki ever got the slightest whiff of an idea that Tony was enjoying their pretense for its own sake, the joke was going to be turned on him in a nanosecond. 

Thinking about it that way, suddenly, this was a lot less funny. 

Tony pushed at Loki's shoulder. "Let me up." 

Loki moved, but he frowned at Tony. Tony knew this wasn't part of the plan, but on the other hand, if he did this right, it'd actually get Loki some sympathy, as well as laying the groundwork for the inevitable breakup. 

Most importantly, Tony needed to get away, now. 

"I had an idea," he explained. "I think I can increase the efficiency of the inertial dampeners in my suit by at least ten percent." 

Twelve, actually. He'd done the calculations this morning; he just hadn't gone in and started the modifications yet. No time like the present, though. "And since it turns out there's a limit to the number of times I can care about _The Matrix_ , and it's however many times I'd seen it before today, I'm heading to the lab."

He made himself smile down at Loki, who was definitely scowling now. "I'll see you at home later? I mean, don't wait up, I have no idea how long this is going to take, but I'll definitely be there. Eventually." 

He'd said the exact same thing to Pepper more than once (more than a dozen times), which was almost certainly one of the reasons she was his ex now. He was also pretty sure that "eventually," in this context, turned out to mean "just in time to take a shower and change clothes, because it's morning now." 

Not that Loki would actually be waiting for him, but again, he needed to get away, and it would mean that Tony, not Loki, would look like the asshole when their fake relationship ended. 

When he looked around the room, everyone was doing their version of Steve's disappointed look--except Loki, who looked like he'd just bitten a lemon--but that was the point, right?

Right.

****

Sixty-four minutes later--which was, at a rough estimate, the remaining runtime in _The Matrix_ plus enough time to get from the lounge to Tony's lab--the door opened, and Loki stalked in.

Tony looked behind him, expecting an audience, because Loki was playing the part of "highly pissed off soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend" brilliantly, from the glare to the way his arms were folded across his chest to the tight straight line of his lips. 

But Loki was alone. "What was that about, Stark?" 

"Hey," Tony said, trying to sound casual. "Come in. I'm kind of busy, so I can't really talk, but if you want to watch a genius at work--" 

He broke off as the screwdriver in his hand suddenly became bitterly cold. When he let it drop to the floor, the plastic hand grip shattered. 

Good thing he hadn't been holding on to the metal. As it was, he had a red mark across his palm, and the joints in his right hand ached from the cold. 

He looked over at Loki; there was a faint halo of green light surrounding his hands, which were now at his sides, curled loosely into fists. 

"What the fuck?"

"Do _not_ play games with me," Loki said. "You will lose, and you won't enjoy it."

"I never enjoy losing." The green glow intensified a little, and Tony put up his hands in the classic "please don't kill me" gesture. 

"I was trying to get you a little sympathy," he explained. "As things stood, when we break up--and I still say it should be sooner rather than later--everyone was going to assume that you were the asshole. I mean, they still halfway suspect that you're mind-controlling me into being in love with you."

"I could," Loki said absently, as if it had just occurred to him. "I don't need the scepter or the Tesseract; any idiot with a scrap of magical ability can do it. There's a second-rate sorceress who keeps casting love spells on Thor. Not very successfully, but perhaps you won't have his dumb luck." 

"And I promise, that is not even a little bit creepy, no matter what anybody else tells you," Tony said. "But it's beside the point. You probably could. You haven't. I'm not mind-controlled." He'd meant to say _I'm not in love with you_ , but that was probably the better choice. 

Even though it was true: he wasn't in love with Loki. Not yet, anyway. 

Not ever, because that was a terrible idea, but definitely not yet. 

"No, you aren't," Loki said. "So are you going to explain how nearly spoiling everything was part of some supposedly-clever plan of yours, or not?"

Right, the plan. It had been a good one, except now Loki was furious, and while he hadn't done anything since the frozen screwdriver, green magic still crackled around his fingertips. 

"This isn't exactly out of character for me," he said. "If I start acting like a thoughtless jerk with you, this early on, then when we break up, everyone will assume it's because you couldn't take me being that much of an asshole, and they won't blame you."

"No, they'll blame you, rather than someone they don't like and don't trust. Unless you want to make a martyr of yourself, this is a foolish plan, in my opinion."

"I didn't ask your opinion," he said. "And I need to get back to work."

"I'm not stopping you." Loki pulled out a chair and sat down. "I'm just here to keep you company. You know, to keep the others from thinking you're a terrible person who abandoned his lover only a few days after moving in together." 

"I want them to think that, though," Tony said. "I'm not kidding around. I want this over with. I'm hoping that setting up a perfectly good reason for you to break up with me will do the trick, but if you force my hand..." 

He shrugged. "If I have to get caught fucking somebody else in a public bathroom to get you to drop this stupid charade, well, my publicist will probably have an aneurysm, but that's just what I'll have to do." 

"You wouldn't." 

"Try me." He probably wouldn't. He'd managed to reach his forties, with over two decades of scandalous behavior behind him, without anything that sordid making the papers. Pepper would kill him. If his publicist survived the initial shock, _she'd_ kill him. But Loki couldn't be sure of that. 

"Give me a week," Loki said. "After that point, it'll be impossible to keep Thor from bringing the news to Asgard, anyway. One week, and then, if you want, you can even claim that I used a love spell on you."

"One week," Tony agreed, "but we break up amicably. We realize that without the sneaking around, the thrill is gone." 

"You're sure you don't want to shout and throw things at me and possibly try to kill me?" 

"I'm horrified by what that says about your past love life," Tony said. "Not surprised, mind you, but horrified."

"I was thinking that your friends might enjoy the show."

"No, I don't want to try to kill you. I'd rather not give you any reason to magic-liquid-nitrogen my balls." He waved down at the bits of screwdriver on the floor. DUM-E was trying to push them into a pile for easier cleanup; it was going about as well as Tony would have expected. 

Loki snickered. "I hadn't considered that possibility. Not before now, at least." 

"So no trying to kill anyone," he said, wishing he'd never given Loki the idea. "We break up. We can decide on the reason later, but I'm serious. Seven days from now, this is done. It's not funny any more."

"I don't know. I'm still enjoying it." 

"That makes one of us."

"Yes, but it's the only one who matters." 

Maybe if Loki kept being obnoxious, Tony would find it easier to pretend to be someone who wasn't at all into Loki and was only pretending to be in love with him. Right now, all the layers were starting to get annoyingly convoluted. 

"Annoyingly convoluted" also described the man who apparently hadn't been joking about planning to watch Tony work. 

Well, fine. If he wanted to sit there while Tony talked to himself and tinkered for the next three hours, Tony hoped he had fun doing it.

****

Tony wasn't going to make it through seven days of this prank.

They'd gotten through three days of their agreed-upon week already, somehow, but he wasn't sure he was going to get through four more hours, let alone four more days. He was either going to murder Loki, or let someone else in on the so-called joke just so he had someone to rant to about how fucking irritating Loki was. 

Thor had been back for a couple of days, but he'd gone off to spend more time with Jane. Otherwise, Tony might have considered ranting to him. It wouldn't require a confession, at least. Thor was probably familiar with the concept of both caring about Loki and wanting to strangle him, so he'd have no trouble believing that Tony felt the same way. 

He wouldn't even have to explain that his irritation was due to the fact that Loki had stepped up the whole "infatuated with Tony" act, to the point that Loki was always there. 

If Tony was in the workshop, Loki was there. Even if they weren't working together on the anti-magic defenses, Loki had moved an armchair and a table into the corner, so that he could sit there with a book (usually something written in an alphabet Tony couldn't recognize, never mind the language, and the notes Loki made in the margins were equally indecipherable) and a mug of tea or coffee--or, in the evenings, a glass of wine--and watch Tony work. 

At meals, or when Tony appeared in the common areas of the tower, Loki was there. That made more sense in terms of the act they were supposed to be keeping up, but he was also harder to ignore there. In the lab, he was usually content to let Tony work, but around other people, he kept finding excuses to touch Tony. 

Even if Tony ignored him and managed to stay on the other side of the room, he couldn't shake his awareness of where Loki was and what he was doing, so it didn't really matter. 

Loki had even showed up yesterday to train with the team. Steve had extended the offer when Loki had first moved into the tower, but it had been soundly rejected at the time. 

Loki claimed he'd reconsidered now. Steve had looked from Loki to Tony and back again, shrugged, and asked the rest of the team if they had any objections. 

Not even Clint had, though he had asked Steve to put them on opposite teams during training exercises. Steve had agreed, and Clint had spent the entire session using Loki for target practice, even if it was only with the mostly-harmless arrows he used for training. 

Tony thought some of the lack of protest was because Thor had been there at the time, and they'd all seen how pleased Thor had looked when Loki had walked into the training room. Who wanted to disappoint the god of thunder if they could avoid it? 

At least when Tony was on Stark Industries business, he could avoid Loki, since they were supposed to be keeping their relationship secret from anyone outside the tower. That wasn't a workable solution all the time, though; for one thing, Pepper would definitely murder him if he was underfoot that often. 

In the tower, there were only two places he could successfully avoid Loki: in the bathroom, and in his own room at night. And with the latter, even though he told JARVIS not to let anyone in unless it was a matter of life and death, Tony wasn't willing to bet that he wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night to find Loki in the armchair in the corner of the room, creepily watching Tony sleep. 

And it wasn't like he could tell anyone that he wanted to be able to avoid Loki, because they still had about ninety-six hours to pretend that they were a happy couple. 

Or maybe not all that happy, what with the way Tony had started having JARVIS check for him to be sure the coast was clear before he went anywhere in the tower. 

It almost never was, and it never stayed that way for long. 

But luck was on his side right now, at least for the moment; when Tony looked through the doorway to the kitchen, the only person inside was Steve, sitting at the table with a sandwich in front of him. 

"Don't mind me," Tony said as he came in. "I just stopped by for a cup of coffee and a snack."

Steve looked up. "I haven't seen a lot of you lately," he said. "At least, not you by yourself."

"No," Tony agreed. "Loki and I are basically inseparable."

Frowning, Steve said, "You don't sound all that happy about that." 

Tony was glad that he was turned away from Steve, pouring himself a cup of coffee, so that Steve couldn't see his expression. "I don't?" 

Of course he didn't. He wasn't happy about it at all. He wanted this week to be over, he wanted things to get back to normal, and above all, he wanted to get through this terrible excuse for a joke without Loki realizing that Tony was falling for it just like the other Avengers had. 

"Not really, no." Steve took a drink from his glass of iced tea and then went on. "I know I've probably said this too often already, and you're welcome to tell me to go to hell. But... your relationship with Loki. This is what you want, isn't it?"

"Yeah, this is what I want." Then he remembered his clever scheme to make himself look like a terrible boyfriend, and said, "I mean, it's cutting into my lab time, but--"

"It's not, though," Steve said. "Every time I've asked JARVIS where you are lately, you're in the lab, and Loki's in there with you." 

True enough. But wait. "You haven't come looking for me in the lab for days. Why are you asking where I am if you don't want to talk to me?" 

"I didn't say I don't need to talk to you," Steve said. "But I don't want to interrupt if you're there with Loki." 

He chuckled. "Afraid you'll walk in on something you don't want to see?"

"You two haven't exactly been discreet." 

Fair enough. There was no point in being discreet when the entire basis of their "relationship" was shocking and horrifying the rest of the team. 

"Anyway, since you're still worrying about me, yes, everything's good," Tony lied. "I'm just tired. Not getting enough sleep lately, if you get my drift." He opened the refrigerator and started rummaging around, so that he didn't have to see the disbelief on Steve's face. 

"Okay," Steve said. "Do you think Loki's going to keep training with us?" 

That was as close to a tactful subject change as they were likely to get. "No idea," Tony said, pulling out the ingredients for a sandwich of his own. Loki probably wouldn't want to train with the Avengers once they put an end to their masquerade, but he couldn't explain that to Steve now. "I hope so, though." Not that it mattered what he hoped for. 

"You two work well together. We had a hard time taking you out yesterday." 

Tony and Loki had taken on the rest of the team, Bruce excluded. Steve had been hesitant to suggest they take the "villain" role in their training exercise--Tony had some automated VR scenarios for them to use in training, but usually they did at least one mock battle with part of the team attacking the rest of them--but Loki hadn't seemed bothered by it, and Tony always had fun when it was his turn. 

"Great. Let's be bad guys," he'd said, reaching out for Loki's hand and grinning at him, and the two of them had retreated to their corner to briefly work out a strategy. 

They'd lost, of course, and Tony wasn't sad about that. He wanted the team to be able to beat whatever opponents they came up against, and they'd been seriously outnumbered. It hadn't been easy for the others to take them out, though, and that had made Tony's day. He and Loki had made a great team. 

Tony had been thinking that a lot lately. He wondered how much he and Loki would be working together once they called a halt to their charade. If they "broke up," probably not a lot, but maybe if they came clean? 

Either way, Loki probably wouldn't be hanging out in the lab with his own work in the evenings, and that had been... kind of enjoyable. 

Usually, if someone else was in his workspace, they were either there to work with him--usually Bruce, sometimes Loki, occasionally Clint when he had an idea for arrows that he didn't have the facilities to make for himself--or to drag him out of the lab (Pepper, once upon a time; occasionally Steve now, if there was something he needed Tony to be present for. Sometimes even Bruce, when he thought Tony was tired enough to be a danger to himself or others).

But this had been somewhere in the middle: company, but the freedom to work on his own projects. Someone who'd eventually get up, close his book and put his notes away, and announce that he was going to bed. He never suggested that Tony leave with him, but because of the image they were trying to project, Tony either said something like, "Hold on, let me shut things down," or followed him within a few minutes. 

That wouldn't happen after this week, but maybe the training would. Maybe Loki would keep working with the team more than he had before. 

Maybe Tony needed to get his head out of the clouds, or out of his ass, or wherever the hell he'd been keeping it lately. 

"I hope so, too," Steve said, dragging Tony out of his thoughts. "I kind of hate to admit it, given that it's Loki, but that was a great training session. And we really do need more opportunities to spar against opponents who can use magic." 

Thor's lightning was magic, of course, but while it was powerful, it was also limited in scope. There were limits to Loki's magic, of course, but he could present them with a much broader range of challenges to test themselves against. 

"You're serious?" Tony had been thinking about it, but he hadn't expected anyone else to. Definitely not seriously. 

"Of course. I do believe in giving people second chances. It's just that Loki hasn't ever shown any interest in getting one until recently. I assume that's your influence."

Steve could assume that all he wanted. It was less Tony's influence and more that Loki was playing a role. A version of Loki who was in love with Tony would make an effort to fit in better with the Avengers. He'd try to give them fewer reasons to mistrust him, if only to make things easier for Tony. After all, if he were in love with Tony, he'd probably want at least ninety-five percent of the annoyances in Tony's life to come directly from Loki himself. 

"I doubt that," Tony said, spreading mustard on his bread, "but I'm happy to take the credit if you want. Just as long as I don't have to take the blame for it when he lets you down." Which would be coming in just a few more days.

"When, not if?"

"I meant if, of course." 

"But you're sure everything's okay with you two?"

Tony considered that. It might be time to start laying a little more groundwork. "I don't know," he said after a moment. "I think so, but... I'm not sure how long it'll be before he gets bored with this." Approximately four days, if Tony was being honest, but none of this had been about honesty. 

At least when they'd started, he'd thought it would be funny. 

Steve actually snorted in disbelief. "Loki's not exactly showing any signs of finding you boring." 

_God of lies and trickery, remember, Steve?_ "Maybe not around you."

"Then for your sake, I'll have to hope that I'm right and you're wrong," Steve said. "You seem happier lately. I think he might actually be good for you." 

Tony blinked, then shook his head to clear the cobwebs. "Did I just hear Captain America tell me that dating Loki is good for me? Oh, God, I fell and hit my head and this is all some kind of coma hallucination, isn't it? I'm going to wake up on a sepia-tinted Kansas farm."

"Don't you think that's a little dramatic, Tony?"

"I think it's a lot dramatic," Tony said, "but seriously, did you hear yourself?"

"I have to believe that people can change. Look at you. Are you really the same man you were a few years ago?"

Of course he was. He'd found some better channels for his energy and his inventions, even for his need for attention and adulation, but he was still the same man he'd been back then.

Not that he was proud of that. If he could have changed himself, deep down--not just his image, not just how he filled his days, but who he was--he'd have done it. It would have kept Pepper in his life, for one thing. 

It would have kept him from agreeing to this stupid plan of Loki's, too. 

"Maybe I am." Steve would disagree, of course, but he'd find out soon enough that he'd been assuming that just because Tony was an Avenger--and Tony was trying to do the right thing, to be a hero, to save the world--that meant he was the same kind of good person, deep down, that Steve was. 

He wasn't. He didn't think any of the rest of them were. He wasn't even sure if Steve was, but he came closer than anyone else Tony knew. 

"I don't know how much Loki's changed." He was on their side, or at least he wasn't _not_ on their side. That had originally been because it was better than a cell on Asgard, or even one in the Raft. Now it was because... Tony wasn't totally sure, but if he had to explain it, he'd say that Loki had decided causing trouble for the good guys was fine, as long as he could cause trouble. 

And oh, was there ever about to be a lot of trouble. 

"Is that what's bothering you?" Steve asked, brow furrowed in concern. "Has he done something to make you think you can't trust him?"

Did he mean besides being Loki? 

Tony shrugged. "I don't think he's going to betray us, if that's what you mean." He finished assembling his sandwich and got down a plate.

At least not in the near future. If he got bored with being a quasi-Avenger, then all bets might be off, though Tony hoped that when that happened, Loki would fuck off to some other part of the universe to cause trouble there.

"What do you think, then?"

"I think he's mostly the same person he always was. He's not as angry at Thor and his father. He's not as crazy. He's not working for Thanos. So he's not trying to conquer planets or usurp the throne of Asgard, he's just a pain in the ass." 

Steve actually smirked at him; it was a little disconcerting. "Sounds like you've just figured out why the two of you get along so well." 

"No," Tony said, "I already knew that." What he didn't know was how to keep getting along with Loki after this was all over. 

Did he want to keep getting along well with Loki? Better than he had before? _Differently_ than he had before Clint had jumped to his spectacularly wrong conclusion? 

Hell. He knew the answer to that one. It was a terrible life choice, but it was also one he'd already made. No backing out now. It wasn't like he could _un_ -fall for the guy. He'd have to wait, and put up with Loki mocking him once he found out that Tony had managed to fall for their fake-dating stunt, and let that kill whatever ill-advised feelings had developed. 

But first, he wanted to go back to something Steve had said earlier. "What did you mean before, when you said Loki didn't seem to be getting bored with me?"

"Exactly what I said." 

"Okay, but explain." 

"He's still paying attention to everything you say. He seems to be aware of where you are in the room at all times. He's happy to work with you even though you haven't had any concrete results yet."

"Things that violate the laws of physics make my teeth hurt," Tony said. "They're also hard to analyze."

"I'm not complaining. I'm just saying that in the absence of visible progress, a lot of people would have given up. I know you well enough that I wouldn't expect you to, not if you thought there was still something for you to figure out, but Loki hasn't either, and I feel like that has something to do with you."

"I feel like that has a lot to do with Loki," Tony said. "He likes finding out what will happen if he pokes things with a stick."

"Regardless," Steve said, "you asked for my opinion. I gave it." 

"And I appreciate it." It was way off base, obviously, but at least Steve had been honest with him. 

Tony was sorry he couldn't return the favor. He'd have liked to be able to tell Steve the truth, but-- "Hey, Cap?"

"Yeah?" 

What, exactly, was he supposed to say? He realized he had no idea. And if he did tell Steve now, what was going to come of it? Steve would still be pissed off. Steve would still tell the others, and then Loki would also be pissed off. At least if he stuck to Loki's plan, there'd be one person in the tower who didn't hate him. That would probably be better than nothing. 

"Never mind," he said. "Just... I don't know. Thanks for listening." 

"We're friends. Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you keep worrying that I'm under some kind of mind control? Because Loki has, in the past, been a megalomaniac bent on conquering the world? Because I have terrible taste in men?"

Steve chuckled. "You really do, you know." 

"So he's a tiny bit evil and probably going to break my heart," Tony said. "It could be worse. At least he's not straight."

"Thank goodness for small favors?" 

"I guess." Tony finished putting away the last of the sandwich components, topped up his coffee, and picked up his plate. "Anyway, I should get back to the lab," he said, and left the kitchen.

****

"I don't care what I said before," Tony said as the lab door closed behind him. "This ends now."

Loki was in his usual spot--or, no, Loki had two usual spots now, because there was the chair he sat in to keep Tony company, like the world's most adoring boyfriend, and then there was where he was now, the corner of the workbench that he usually perched on while Tony had him do magic and let JARVIS take readings. 

There were plenty of chairs and workstools available, because the furnishings had been ordered by a Stark Industries employee who didn't realize that Tony would run just about everyone out of his lab and therefore could get by with a lot less seating, but Loki had gravitated to that bench, and Tony didn't argue. 

"The week isn't over," was all Loki said before returning to what he'd been doing as Tony came in: conjuring a small ball of glowing green light that he tossed idly from hand to hand the way normal people jingled their keys or drummed their fingers on the table. 

Tony put down his sandwich and his coffee on another table. "Did you miss the part where I don't care? Because I don't. I'm sick of this. It was funny when everyone was horrified, but Thor has welcomed me to your family--which is even more fucked up than mine was, lucky me--and Steve's being encouraging about our relationship, and I'm getting sick of lying to everyone. Especially since even Clint just grimaced a little when I grabbed your ass in the kitchen last night. The thrill is gone." 

The thrill wasn't gone. The thrill had changed. The thrill was less "make Clint's eyes pop out of his head" and more... Loki. 

The thrill was dangerous. The thrill was still at least a little bit evil and likely to break his heart. 

The thrill was the ridiculously far-fetched idea that there was someone out there who valued Tony's company enough that even if he had no real reason to be in the lab and no real interest in what Tony was doing there, he had moved a comfortable chair and his own projects into a corner of the lab, just so that he could spend time with Tony even when Tony spent his evenings tinkering. 

The thrill was the way Tony's living room looked now, with Loki's books mixed in with Tony's possessions. 

The thrill was... fuck it. The thrill, at least lately, had been in the times when he'd let himself pretend that this was real, that somehow he and Loki had found one another and were trying to make things work, as unbelievable as that sounded. 

"Anyway," Tony went on, "I wasn't asking you. I was telling you. We can break up, or I can confess. I'd actually prefer the latter, but I'll go along with whichever you decide."

"All right," Loki said. "It wasn't having much of an effect any more, anyway. The others are far too adaptable. Let's break up." He smiled at Tony. It wasn't a nice smile. 

Tony hadn't realized until recently that Loki was capable of smiles that weren't at least slightly unpleasant. He was going to miss those. 

"Do we make a big dramatic scene," Tony asked, "or can we just do this quietly?"

"It should be public," Loki said. "How dramatic it is will depend on how much of an audience we have." 

Okay. If he couldn't confess, at least he could yell at Loki and get some of this out of his system. That sounded pretty good. "When do you want to do this?"

"Today," Loki said. The glowing lights faded out, and he got to his feet. "Not yet, though. You'll know when it's time." 

He left, which Tony thought was an excellent development. Tomorrow he'd be able to get that stupid chair out of his lab, too. And the table stacked with leather-bound journals, pens, post-it notes (Loki had adapted just fine to Earth office supplies), and all the rest of Loki's crap. 

Tomorrow, everything would be back to normal, and Tony couldn't be happier about that.

****

After one of what had to have been one of Tony's least productive hours in the lab ever, he'd had to leave for a mission briefing with SHIELD. They weren't leaving until the day after tomorrow, and there'd be another short briefing before the quinjet took off, but this was a chance for Hill to pass out information packets and give them some off-the-record information about the group of crooks--super-powered crooks, but still just petty criminals--they were going after.

It was, in other words, boring as hell, and Tony was glad when he could head back to the lab. Now that the meeting was over and Tony had gotten things settled with Loki, he was hoping he'd be able to actually get shit done. He'd make sure to go to dinner, since that seemed like the most reasonable time for Loki to do whatever it was he was planning, but that still left him a couple of hours to--

Tony's train of thought derailed once he walked into his lab. Loki's chair and table were already gone. So were his books and papers. 

_Loki_ was already gone. 

He wondered if that was what Loki meant when he'd said that Tony would know when it was time. 

All right, then. It was time. 

Or it would be. Right now, it was time for him to get some work done before dinner and the inevitable dramatic breakup scene. 

This whole situation was throwing him off his stride; he only managed to accomplish about half of what he intended before JARVIS reminded him that he'd intended to join the team for dinner. 

"And if I could make a suggestion, sir, you may wish to change before you do that." 

Tony glanced down at the wide streak of oil adorning the front of his shirt. Yeah, he should probably clean up a little. He didn't always care, but given that he was about to be dumped in front of the team--even if it was a fake breakup of a fake relationship--looking a little less bedraggled might be good for his dignity. 

When he got up to the penthouse, he saw that Loki had been at work there as well; the bookcase was gone from the living room, and the guest bedroom was back to looking unoccupied. The only trace that anyone had been living there was that the bed had been stripped and not remade. 

Okay, then. This was clearly the sign he'd been promised. If Loki showed up at dinner, Tony would be able to comment on the absence of all of Loki's stuff, and Loki could take it from there. 

He jumped into the shower, changed, and then went back into the guest room and remade the bed. The cleaning service always kept fresh sheets on it, and the room looked less bare, more normal, that way. 

It didn't change the fact that his entire apartment looked bare. Loki hadn't moved in all that much stuff, and he'd only been there for a few days, but it still looked empty with him gone. 

Caring about this was ridiculous, and he needed to stop it immediately.

No, not immediately. After dinner. After they'd "broken up." Right now he needed to be able to draw on all of that ridiculousness for the sake of being able to put on a convincing act. 

He was guessing the act he was supposed to put on was that of "man who discovered his partner had moved out while his back was turned." Bewildered and slightly brokenhearted.

The winner of the award for Best Actor in a Long Form Prank ought to be able to handle that one just fine.

****

Loki wasn't there when Tony went down to the common floor, but Tony had checked when the message from Bruce (whose turn it was to arrange team dinner) came through asking for Tony's order from the Indian place Bruce liked. Loki had ordered food, so he was obviously planning to make an appearance, at least for long enough to collect it.

The food wasn't there yet either, so Tony fixed himself a drink and sat down near Steve, who was talking to Bruce. "Hey, guys," he said, trying to sound cheerful. Or trying to sound like someone who was trying to sound cheerful, which was probably the right tack to take. 

Also not that far from reality. "ETA on the food?"

"I just made the order," Bruce said. "Half an hour? Forty-five minutes?"

"Half an hour," Steve said. "They always manage to deliver the food at least fifteen minutes faster than their estimate, for some reason."

"Because we saved the world a couple of times?" Tony said.

"Also because the delivery guy gets at least a fifty percent tip," Clint suggested. Tony had seen him and Natasha on the other couch, of course, but he hadn't realized they were listening in. "We order enough food to feed an army, too, so fifty percent is a hefty amount."

"Yeah, okay, it's probably that," Tony agreed, sipping his drink. 

He wasn't looking up at the doorway at every slight sound. Loki would be there when he got there. 

"Everything okay?" Bruce said. "You seem kind of jumpy."

Tony took a deep breath. "Rough day," he said, which he figured was non-committal enough. "Not really something I'm eager to talk about."

Not that "not talking about it" was going to be an option, since the breakup needed to be public. 

And not that Tony was going to be able to put it off any longer, because there was Loki, walking into the room and looking everywhere but at Tony. 

There were just the six of them tonight. Tony was relieved Thor wasn't there. He'd been so pleased to see that his brother was happy.

Loki hesitated. He obviously wanted to avoid Tony, but Tony was guessing that he was still giving Clint a wide berth on general principles. In the end, Loki took a chair a little distance from the couch where Nat and Clint were sitting. 

Loki had said that Tony would know when it was time. It was definitely time now. "You didn't even leave a note?" Tony said, raising his voice to be sure it would carry. 

"I thought the absence of all my possessions would be a clear enough message," Loki said without even looking up. 

Everyone else did, though. 

"Rough day?" Bruce repeated quietly, and Tony nodded. 

"The roughest," he said, and didn't even feel like he was lying. 

All right, technically, Tony had had much worse days than this, but nobody was going to assume that this outranked alien invasions or literal torture. 

"It was kind of out of the blue, you know," he went on, looking at Loki even if Loki didn't meet his eyes. "You couldn't have given me some kind of warning?"

"No," Loki said. "That would have spoiled the joke." 

The joke? Tony's gut twisted as he worked out where this had to be going. He was trying to figure out some way to deflect the conversation, to keep Loki from actually carrying this out, but Steve spoke up before he could. 

"What joke was that?" 

"All of this," Loki said. "I'm grateful, Barton. Stark wanted to keep things between us quiet, which was obviously not what I wanted. This was no fun unless the rest of you were shocked by it. I'd almost decided to give up out of boredom when you saw us in the lab."

Clint glared at him. "Leave me the fuck out of this."

"And Captain Rogers," Loki continued. "All your concern that I was influencing Stark with my magic was completely unfounded. All I had to do was to pay him a little attention, flatter him a bit, and he was all too easy to manipulate."

"I thought--" Tony began, and then broke off. He'd known it was a joke. He'd even considered that Loki would turn it on him if he sensed that he could. He'd just been telling himself that he'd been wrong about that. 

"I know what you thought," Loki said. "Do you really think I'd waste my time with a pathetic little mortal like you? Stick with your machines. At least you can program them not to find you unbearable."

Despite his best efforts not to, Tony flinched. 

This was an act, he told himself. It was all an act, because Loki was annoyed at Tony for trying to take the blame for their fake "break-up," and had decided to paint Tony as a victim. There was no reason for this to hurt. 

"That's enough," Natasha cut in. "I think you've made your point."

"I don't think I have. I don't think any of you have the slightest idea how utterly absurd it is to think that Stark could have a relationship with anyone who didn't view him as some sort of improvement project."

Actually, Tony thought he did. That had been the problem with Pepper. There hadn't been anything wrong with the changes she wanted him to make in himself and his behavior. There wasn't even anything wrong with her wanting him to change because she knew he wasn't happy with who he was and some of the things he'd done--which was nothing more than the truth. 

The problem had been that she had needed him to change so that he would be someone she could be happy with, someone she could love. 

"She said _enough_ ," Bruce said. No, he growled it, and then closed his eyes and started doing breathing exercises: inhaling through his nose, holding his breath for a bit, then exhaling slowly through his mouth. Tony recognized it as a strategy he'd taught Tony to help with the panic attacks, though Tony kept forgetting to actually do it until it was too late.

Was that a faint tinge of green on Bruce's cheek, or was Tony just seeing things? If it had been there, it faded, though, and then Bruce opened his eyes. "Put my food in the fridge when it gets here, please," he said. "I'll be down for it later. Right now, I can't be here."

Neither could Tony. He got to his feet. "I'll walk with you," he offered. "Turns out I'm not really hungry." 

Bruce smiled at him. "Yeah, okay. I wouldn't mind the company."

He did a pretty good job of holding it together, in Tony's opinion--a lot better than Tony was. Tony's gut was churning, despite the fact that he knew this had all been an act, a fake breakup to put an end to a fake relationship. It shouldn't have even hurt, but dammit, Loki had known exactly what to say to draw blood. 

"I'm sorry," Bruce said once they were in the elevator. "For nearly setting off a Code Green down there, I mean. It was just so nasty, doing that in public. If he had to say any of it, he could have--"

"No," Tony said, "he couldn't. Or wouldn't, anyway. It's not funny unless he tries to get everyone in on the joke." And Tony had played along, despite his reservations. He deserved to have it turned on him. It served him right that he'd fallen for Loki's earlier act, and therefore this one hurt more. 

He sighed. "And thanks for trying to minimize the damage."

Bruce looked Tony in the eye for a long moment, and then said, "You really fell hard for him, didn't you?"

No. Of course not. It was all an act. Best Actor in a Long Form Prank, that was him. 

So why, when he opened his mouth, did he say, "Yeah, I guess I did. But to be honest, I deserved this. I mean, I didn't expect it to backfire on me, but..."

It really sucked sometimes that Bruce wasn't stupid, because he frowned at Tony for a second and then said, "So it _was_ all a fake."

"Yes," Tony admitted. "I mean, yes, sort of? But then I halfway started believing it, and then it blew up in my face."

The elevator opened, and Tony followed Bruce out without thinking about it. He'd rather let Bruce tell him what an asshole he'd been now, instead of it hanging over his head, anyway. 

"I'd be annoyed that you did something so stupid," Bruce said, "except that I'm pretty sure you've suffered enough for something that barely registers on the 'Tony's bad decisions' scale." He opened the door to his apartment. "Coming in?"

"Sure, if you don't mind."

"I'm fine now," Bruce said. "I wasn't that close to losing it down there, but if I'd had to listen to Loki any longer, I might have been." 

So Tony had only been imagining the green. Good to know. 

Bruce let them into his apartment, and Tony sat down on one end of the couch. "It was great when it was just Clint being dramatically horrified," he confessed. "Or when Steve was going around trying to figure out whether I was mind-controlled or just had really bad taste in men. But then people started being happy for us. You guys started really trying to get along with Loki, for my sake, and I started to feel really guilty."

"You shouldn't feel that bad," Bruce said, from the other end of the couch. "It was a dumb joke, and not at all funny, but it wasn't mean. Nobody was going to be hurt by it."

"Thor was going to be really disappointed."

"Thor has been Loki's brother for what, a thousand years? I think it's time he learned to live with that brand of disappointment." Bruce kicked his shoes off and stretched out his legs, putting his feet on the coffee table. "I'm not saying it was a great idea, but it isn't worth beating yourself up over."

"Especially not when I have Loki to do it for me."

"Especially not then."

Tony scrubbed at his face with the heels of his hands, trying to break his way through the funk he'd found himself in. "So, yeah. I'm apparently a grade-A method actor. If I have to play the role of someone who's fallen in love with Loki, my strategy is to actually... Okay, no. I'm not in love with him, for God's sake. I'm not that much of an idiot."

Bruce's silence was a lot more pointed than any words could have been. 

"I am totally that much of an idiot," Tony muttered. "But it doesn't matter now, anyway."

"At least if anyone was inclined to be angry at you over this, they'll be directing it all at Loki instead?"

"That may be the most pathetic excuse for a silver lining that I've ever heard."

Except. 

Loki had thought Tony was being stupid for making himself look like a jerk to give them a reason to be breaking up. 

Loki had specifically mentioned things that Tony knew hadn't happened, specifically referenced the part of their relationship they'd invented. 

There was a chance, just a chance, that Loki had made all of this up in order to give them an excuse for the split, one that would mean Tony wouldn't catch any of the flack for their prank. 

There was a bigger chance that Loki had just altered the timeline to make it fit with what they'd already told the others, but that either turning the joke on Tony had been in his mind all along, or he'd realized at some point that Tony was getting too emotionally invested, and decided that this would be much more enjoyable for him than the original plan, which would have left people annoyed, but wouldn't have hurt anybody.

Either way, Tony had just sat back and let Loki spit poison at him--fuck, he hadn't realized that Loki had seen him so clearly, he'd never have let any of this happen if he'd known that--and that was not Tony Stark. 

It didn't matter what Loki's motivation had been. What mattered was that Tony wasn't going to just sit there and take it. If it turned out this was all just part of their scheme, well, Tony wouldn't have just listened to it then, either. Maybe he'd have been stunned initially, but--

"I have to talk to Loki," Tony said, getting to his feet. 

"Sure that's a good idea?"

"No. To be honest, I'm sure it's a terrible idea. But I have a lot of yelling to do, and there's no time like the present."

According to JARVIS, Loki had gone to the lab shortly after Tony and Bruce had left. Dinner, Tony was guessing, was looking pretty dismal: Steve, Clint, and Natasha, probably all discussing what an idiot Tony had been--in the most sympathetic manner, at least in Steve's case, but still variations on the theme of "what was he thinking?"

Tony strode into the lab, glaring at Loki--who was, yet again, perched on the corner of a work table. He looked up when Tony came in. 

"That took you long enough."

"You," Tony said, "don't have access to this lab any more. Got that, JARVIS? Loki Laufeyson, all access to the Avengers Tower laboratory facilities revoked." It didn't mean that Loki couldn't be in the lab, if Tony needed his help with the anti-magic research, but he'd have to be specifically allowed in. 

Tony would have to go back to that research eventually. They needed those defenses, and Loki was the only magic user they knew of who was even slightly inclined to help them. 

"That won't keep me out," Loki said. "It'll only stop me using the door." 

"I know." Loki generally did use the doors when he was in the tower, but since they didn't have defenses against magic yet, he could open a portal and come to the lab whenever he wanted. "JARVIS will send out an intruder alert, though. And the point is, you're not wanted here unless I need your help with a project."

"I don't know why you're so angry," Loki said. "You're the one who wanted to put an end to this. I just made certain you wouldn't take any of the blame for it. You should appreciate that. It's not often that I'm willing to do that for someone."

Loki was generally unwilling to take the blame for something that was one hundred percent his fault, so that much was true. 

Not relevant, but true.

"You don't know why I'm angry," Tony repeated. "You went down there and told the others that you'd manipulated me into falling in love with you--into believing that you'd fallen in love with me--and you don't know why I'm angry?"

"It was a good explanation!" Loki conjured more of those little illusory balls of green light, but instead of tossing them back and forth, he tossed them into the air one by one, then zapped them with tiny blasts of magic. When he hit one, it dissolved into a cloud of red and gold sparks. 

"Yeah," Tony said. "It was a great explanation. Probably because it was true."

"What? No, it wasn't. It was a story. I just wanted something that would fit the facts as they knew them."

"Some of the details weren't true," Tony agreed. "It wasn't like we even thought about this before Clint and his dirty mind jumped to conclusions." 

He wasn't completely sure about that. He hadn't thought about it consciously, no, but could he really say that this hadn't been developing somewhere in the back of his mind? Could he say that it wouldn't have happened eventually, just not on this accelerated time frame?

He wasn't sure. 

"None of it was true," Loki said, and Tony couldn't tell if he was lying, or really that blind. 

It was Loki. He'd assume "lying."

"It was." Tony bit off each word. "All of it. You knew that, and you still--God, you made me look pathetic." He wanted to throw something, but everything within his reach was something he didn't want to damage. 

"It was an act, Stark. We were pretending. It was a joke."

"It wasn't. I thought it would be, but it wasn't, and you knew that. You had to have known it, because isn't that what made the joke funny in the first place? It was kind of dumb otherwise, not really your caliber. It didn't hurt anyone, so why would you even care?" 

He took a deep breath. "Except, of course, that you knew who the joke was really being played on."

"I didn't expect it to be one of my better tricks," Loki said, "but I thought it would be mildly funny, especially since Agent Barton is so easily scandalized."

"He's usually not." But it was Loki, and also Tony still thought Clint was probably not as straight as he thought he was, and so yes, flailing and squawking had been the result. 

"And I know," Tony want on, picking up a piece of a dismantled knee joint and fiddling with it, "you thought it would be funny. I know you hate all of us. But I didn't know you hated me, in particular, quite that much. I thought we were getting along okay. Is it because you couldn't control me with that scepter of yours? Or was it just that you saw an easy mark?"

"This wasn't aimed at you. I thought it would be entertaining. I thought it would pass the time. I didn't think you'd overreact like this."

"I didn't overreact. I fell in love with you," Tony yelled.

"That could, in fact, be described as overreacting."

"It could also be described as stupid," Tony said. "I knew who you are. I knew this was all an act, and I fell for it anyway." He sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Get out of my lab, Loki. Don't come back without an invitation."

Loki was silent for a moment, just looking at Tony. Tony tried to project an aura of absolute certainty and a healthy dose of "I am so over your bullshit." 

It must have worked. "Suit yourself," Loki said at last. He opened a portal, and then he was gone.

Tony was obviously thrilled.

****

For the next four days, Loki stayed out of the lab. Where he actually went, Tony had no idea, because the only places Tony went were his apartment and the lab, and he mostly transitioned from one to the other in the middle of the night, when no one else was around. He hadn't even had to go on that mission for SHIELD; it had fallen through, much to Tony's relief.

Bruce came into the lab from time to time, but when Tony made it obvious he didn't want to talk, he started just going straight to work without trying to make conversation. A couple of times a day, he left food, which made Tony think of somebody trying to tame a feral alley cat. 

Well, he did feel like biting anyone who got too close to him. 

Tony liked the low-pressure company. Bruce was there, doing his own thing while Tony hammered pieces of metal, which was both useful and cathartic. 

By the fifth day, though, Tony was done sulking. Or nursing his broken heart, which he would never, even at gunpoint, admit to doing.

He was still pissed at Loki, but he was done avoiding everyone else. 

He'd spent a day or so hoping there'd be some kind of crisis, so that he could show up when the call to assemble came, then go back to his normal patterns of behavior like nothing had ever happened. But the villains of the world steadfastly refused to give Tony anything resembling a break, so he decided to just go down to see what was going on in the rest of the tower. 

As it turned out, there was almost nothing going on. Everyone was on the common floor, though, so at least he could get this over with all at once. 

Everyone, of course, meant "everyone but Loki." And "everyone" stopped what they were doing when Tony came in--just for a moment, but long enough that it was definitely not a coincidence. 

After a moment, though, Clint went back to his videogame, and Natasha and Bruce resumed their conversation.

Thor, who'd apparently been Clint's opponent--Tony might have thought twice about this if he'd realized Thor was back from his last visit with Jane--put his controller down and came over to Tony, though.

"I am sorry, my friend," Thor said. "The others told me what has happened. All I can say is that I truly believed my brother to be sincere, so please, don't feel that you've been foolish."

That might have been comforting if Thor hadn't believed his brother to be sincere entirely too many times in his life. Thor wasn't dumb, exactly, but he had a giant, Loki-shaped, blind spot where he was completely gullible. 

"It's okay," Tony said. "I'm fine, I swear. I knew this would probably happen."

Thor clasped his shoulder briefly and went back to his game, and that made him feel worse than he had already. 

And that left Steve. "I'm sorry," Steve said sheepishly. "I'm guessing you had some kind of feeling about this, and that's why you were arguing with me about how into you Loki was?"

So Bruce hadn't actually told them the truth. Tony looked over and caught his eye. Bruce shrugged a little, and Tony silently mouthed, "Thanks," at him before sinking down onto the couch next to Steve. 

"Actually," he said, "I was totally blindsided. I went to the lab, his stuff was gone. I went to the penthouse, the same thing. And then... well, you saw what happened next."

"Nobody's seen him since then," Steve said. "JARVIS says he hasn't left the tower, and he's apparently been getting food when we're not around, but he's been hiding even more thoroughly than you have."

"I wasn't hiding," Tony said reflexively. "I was... I just needed to be alone for a while. I figured you'd call me if you needed me, and otherwise, I just wasn't ready for this conversation." 

"And now?"

"And now, since nobody seems to be busy, I'm thinking pizza and Mario Kart." Sometimes living in the tower was a lot like being at MIT with Rhodey. In a good way, but still. 

Steve groaned. "Natasha always wins."

"You try to follow traffic laws, Thor thinks he can drive through things, Bruce makes an attempt but also drives like someone's grandmother, and Clint and I are afraid she'll kill us for real if we beat her, so yes, Natasha always wins. It's still fun."

"I don't follow traffic laws. I just try to play fair."

"And you lose," Tony said, "but it's okay. There'll be pizza, and you can watch me being brilliant. You enjoy that."

"I do?"

"Everyone enjoys that," Tony told him, and went to tell the others.

****

After that, things got back to some semblance of normalcy. Tony worked, and let Steve and Bruce nudge him into showing up at meals, and came up with a scheme to lighten the next iteration of his armor by at least three percent, which could make a real difference in energy efficiency as well as maneuverability.

If he missed Loki, that wasn't relevant. He could miss Loki, and still go on about life as usual. And considering that he was still Tony Stark, life as usual was pretty good. 

And then Steve scheduled a team training exercise. Tony was almost late (all right, he was fifteen minutes late, but for something he didn't actually want to attend, that was practically punctual), and when he got to the training gym, he could hear an argument loud enough to carry through the doors. 

"I think you've made it clear that you aren't part of the team." That was Bruce, who was a better friend than Tony deserved.

"...if you train with us, but it's not fair to Tony to--" Steve, partly drowned out by Bruce at first, and then interrupted.

" _I_ care if he trains with us. I don't want him here." Clint. "I put up with him for Tony's sake, but--"

"Why don't we ask Stark what he thinks? He's right outside," Loki said. Then he opened the door, smiling at Tony as though the last week had never happened, and they were still pretending to be madly in love. 

Tony forced himself to smile back, because he'd be damned if he let Loki see that he was anything other than completely okay. "Loki," he said. "I didn't expect to see you here."

Then he made himself smile a little brighter, and added, "But that's great. I'm glad you didn't stop coming just because we 'broke up.'" He made air quotes around the last two words, just to make it clear that he understood there had never really been anything to break up from. 

Also because Pepper had always told him that air quotes made him look like an asshole, and where Loki was concerned, Tony definitely wanted to look like an asshole. 

This time, the entire team was fighting against a bunch of hard-light holograms instead of splitting into groups and battling one another. That was lucky, because Tony was really off his game, which he was sure was Loki's fault. At least this way when he was the first of them to get taken out, none of the others got to brag about having kicked his ass. 

Much to his surprise, Loki was the second man down. 

Even more to his surprise, instead of leaving or at least sitting down as far from Tony as he could get, he came over and sat at the other end of Tony's bench. 

"That was humiliating," he said. 

"Good." Tony didn't let himself get up and walk out. First, Steve would gripe at him if he missed the post-training debriefing, but also, it would make Loki think that his presence was bothering Tony in some way. 

Which, of course, it was. 

"I should have expected that response, shouldn't I?" 

Tony realized that if he didn't leave, he was going to sit here and snipe at Loki, and he liked the high ground that he had right now. "Yeah, probably. Hey, J-man, let me know when it's time for the post-game with Coach Steve, okay?"

As unobtrusively as possible, he left the gym. He could pretend to be positive about Loki training with them. Hell, he could actually be positive about Loki training with them. It was, overall, a good thing that would make the team stronger. 

But he didn't have to pretend to be okay with sitting there talking to Loki when what he really wanted to do was...

Huh. He'd been thinking "punch him," but he wasn't totally sure that was what he _did_ want.

****

He should have given Loki a much broader list of places to stay away from than just the lab, because by the time Tony had poured himself a glass of water, Loki was in the kitchen with him.

Not that he could actually refuse to let Loki have access to the kitchen, but it was a nice thought. "What do you want?" he said. "We don't have an audience, so it won't be nearly as much fun for you to tear down my ego."

"If I had intended to tear down your ego," Loki said, "I would have begun by insulting your robots. I was trying to let you escape any consequences from our joke. That meant that I had to say some things that might be considered cruel, but I thought you understood that it was all part of the act." 

"I don't even get why you would do that," Tony said. "Since when do you care about getting other people in trouble? Especially since this would have barely qualified as 'trouble.' They'd have yelled for a while and then been annoyed for a few days. By now, it'd have already blown over."

"Perhaps I made an exception for you," Loki said. "I've made any number of those."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tony set his glass down on the table and then pulled out a chair. If he was going to be here for a while listening to Loki's bullshit, he might as well sit down.

And maybe there'd be something resembling a plausible--if not honest--explanation. That'd be nice. 

"I agreed to hand myself over to the Avengers, to live under your supervision, because it was preferable to being Odin's prisoner. I agreed to assist you in your researches to stave off boredom. That was all I ever meant to do. I never wanted to spend any unnecessary time with you. I certainly never wanted to find myself acting as part of the team."

Tony almost laughed at the horrified expression on Loki's face. Almost, but not quite. He didn't want Loki to think that Tony was anything other than completely pissed off at him. 

And then he was glad he didn't laugh, because Loki said, "And above all, I never wanted to become _fond_ of you." He didn't give Tony a chance to reply, just added, "So if you're still not certain why I would end our little joke in a way that painted you as the victim of it, I don't think I can explain it any more clearly."

Loki's smile was tight, more like a grimace. "You can take comfort in knowing that it backfired on me, given how much you despise me." 

That left Tony speechless for a moment, but he recovered quickly, afraid that if he didn't say anything now, Loki would leave. This opportunity probably wouldn't come again. "If you remember, I made it pretty clear the last time we talked that I don't despise you. I'm angry at you. Big difference."

"You also made it quite clear that you resented the fact that you had feelings for me."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Of course I did, you idiot, you'd just humiliated me. I wasn't sure how much of what you said was the truth. I'm still not sure."

"None of it," Loki said immediately, not that Tony was prepared to take his word for it. 

"So yeah," he said, "in those circumstances, of course I hated knowing that I'd fallen for you. I'd have been stupid not to feel that way."

"And in other circumstances? Circumstances where, perhaps, I regret having chosen that particular strategy for ending our sham relationship?"

"Is that--that's what passes for an apology in Loki Land, isn't it?"

"It's as near to one as you're likely to get," Loki admitted. 

It was good enough for Tony. "And those would also be circumstances where you've just admitted to being 'fond' of me?" 

"That, as well." 

"Then I don't actually hate it," Tony said. "Or you. In fact, I could probably be convinced to try this whole thing again, for real." 

Loki was silent for a little while, and Tony couldn't be sure if it was real reluctance or just hesitation. 

"It's a limited-time offer," Tony said. "I'm going to count to ten, and if you haven't done or said anything by then, I'm going to assume this was another example of your sense of humor, and this is permanently off the table." He took a deep breath. "One."

Another breath. "Two."

Before he could get to "Three," Loki was on the other side of the table, hauling Tony to his feet by the front of his shirt. 

"Three?" Tony tried, grinning up at Loki.

"You need more of a sign?" Loki sighed. "Very well, then. I suppose I have to accommodate your limited intellect." He kissed Tony then, slowly and deeply, his arms wrapping around Tony to pull him closer. Tony always forgot how physically strong Loki was, since he was also, from what Tony could tell, what passed for a geek on Asgard. 

"I think I get it now," he said, "but you might want to try again, just to be sure." He didn't give Loki a chance to, though; he just went back to kissing him. 

"Oh, for fuck's sake," came a voice a minute later. "I thought you two breaking up meant we'd never have to see any of this again."

"No such luck, Barton," Tony called, laughing with his face pressed into the curve of Loki's neck, feeling Loki shiver as Tony's breath tickled him. 

"I hate you both," Clint muttered, stomping back down the hall. 

"Poor Clint," Tony said, still laughing. "Imagine how horrified he'd be if he discovered this was all his fault in the first place?"

"Oh, please tell him," Loki said, "and let me watch."

"I have priorities," Tony said. "None of them involve Clint."

Loki grumbled a bit, but when Tony demonstrated what his priorities did involve, he shut up. 

That'd be a useful strategy in the future, Tony thought, because he was sure there was going to be a time when he'd need a "quit your bitching, Loki," button. 

But for right now, it was just a lot of fun to be able to do this, and admit that he wasn't acting at all.

****

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me [on Dreamwidth](https://mireille719.dreamwidth.org).


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